Morac

Q: What does the dotted grayed out circle in on this iPhone/iPad mean?

When I open iTunes and go to my iPad or iPhone and click "On This iPhone/iPad" and choose categories on the right, some items are grayed out with a dotted circle on the left.  This primarily seems to be in the "Books" (some),  "Tones" (most) and "Voice Memos" (all) sections. 

 

This isn't the play/unplayed blue dot.  It's something else.

 

Any ideas what this means?

iPhone 4S, iOS 6.0.1, AT&T 32 GB

Posted on Dec 1, 2012 12:18 PM

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Q: What does the dotted grayed out circle in on this iPhone/iPad mean?

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  • by jPhone7,

    jPhone7 jPhone7 Dec 3, 2012 3:21 AM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Dec 3, 2012 3:21 AM in response to Morac

    Same here. A lot of duplicated appear in iTunes viewing my iPads music, iTunes match activated. I assume this related to items not downloaded or sorted into the music catalogue correctly. I do also assume that this is the 4GB space or part of it apearing as "other" in the memory usage overview - the colorful bar.

    iOS 6.01, iTunes 11 on Win7

  • by Boblive77,

    Boblive77 Boblive77 Dec 3, 2012 11:32 PM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (93 points)
    Photos for Mac
    Dec 3, 2012 11:32 PM in response to Morac

    I am having this issue too.  Below is a screen grab from the "On this iPhone" section.  Three songs that are already on my iPhone also show as duplicated and grayed out with dotted circles next to them.  Have no idea what it means...

     

    itunes grab.jpg

  • by LordPie,

    LordPie LordPie Dec 17, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 17, 2012 6:53 PM in response to Morac

    I had this same issue today. Managed to fix it by downloading one of those iPhone file explorer programs (iExplorer in this case) and deleting the contents of the Purchases folder. Obviously you would want to do a backup before trying this just in case.

  • by micure,

    micure micure Jan 3, 2013 11:32 AM in response to Boblive77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 3, 2013 11:32 AM in response to Boblive77

    nightmare of a time with this one.

     

    sorted it on my iphone4.  there was a few tracks that did not have album artwork correct.  highlight the whole album, and right click for get info, and when you get to the info paste the album artwork into the album artwork window that is left open.  now drag and drop.  worked for me!!

     

    no help from apple though!

  • by cfree,

    cfree cfree Feb 19, 2013 10:03 PM in response to Boblive77
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 19, 2013 10:03 PM in response to Boblive77

    Deselect the songs from your iphone then delete them.

    Sync it.

    Then pull the songs from you computer and add it to your iPhone play list.

    Sync it.


    Done.

  • by gail from maine,

    gail from maine gail from maine Feb 19, 2013 10:07 PM in response to Morac
    Level 7 (26,309 points)
    iCloud
    Feb 19, 2013 10:07 PM in response to Morac

    Hi Morac and all:

     

    First go to the 'On This iPad/iPod/iPhone' section and note all the tracks that have dotted circles.

     

    In the 'Music' section, un-check/de-select all the tunes noted 

     

    Apply and sync the changes. 

     

    Once that completes re-check/re-select the same tunes just un-checked/de-selected in the 'Music' section.

     

    Apply and sync the changes again

     

    Go back into the 'On This iPad/iPod/iPhone' section

     

    Hopefully all the dotted circles will be gone and all the tracks can be played

     

    This would apply to any item that has the circle. Once you have un-checked/de-selected them for the first sync, you can re-check them and re-sync and you should be back in business.

     

    There is no need to delete anything - just un-check, sync, re-check, sync....

     

    Cheers,

     

    GB

  • by Thumbmaster,

    Thumbmaster Thumbmaster Mar 25, 2013 8:01 AM in response to gail from maine
    Level 1 (54 points)
    Notebooks
    Mar 25, 2013 8:01 AM in response to gail from maine

    I've tried Gail's suggestion and it's still giving me the dotted circles. I've even gone as far as restoring the iPad mini and reloaded everything from scratch. It appears it only applies to my voice memos that were synced from my iPhone. I haven't yet investigated deeper to see if it affects other media files.

     

    I have all relevant settings checked. The sync appears to go thru but the results are files with the dotted circle (in iTunes) and nothing on the iPad itself. 3rd party tools "sees" the files on the iPad but once downloaded, results in 0KB files.

     

    Does anyone have any ideas how to sync voice memo files successfully onto the iPad?

  • by Jerrill,

    Jerrill Jerrill Oct 31, 2013 5:19 PM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (5 points)
    Oct 31, 2013 5:19 PM in response to Morac

    I downloaded one of the file explorer programs (iFunbox in my case) for my PC and deleted everything out of the "Purchases" folder on the phone's "Raw File System". After a couple of syncs with iTunes everything was back to normal. It appears that something was screwed up on the iPhone side that iTunes couldn't sort out. I don't think anything could sync from iTunes to the phone, not just the greyed out items.

     

    This is why resetting and restoring the iPhone also works for a lot of people. It's overkill though, deletes your app data, and just wastes your time setting everything back up after the restore. Better to use the surgical approach of a file system explorer program on your PC to fix what appears to be a mundane data corruption issue.

  • by Morac,

    Morac Morac Nov 5, 2013 9:09 PM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (123 points)
    iPhone
    Nov 5, 2013 9:09 PM in response to Morac

    I did a restore and restore from backup for a different reason and the grayed out items are no longer there.  I'm pretty sure they were failed downloads/streams.

  • by libbylou91,

    libbylou91 libbylou91 Dec 24, 2013 6:49 AM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Dec 24, 2013 6:49 AM in response to Morac

    I had this issue as well, but it's a but different to resolve when you use iTunes Match. You can't sync the ringtones, since it will disable iTunes Match and sync the music as well.

     

    What I did was this:

     

    1. Go into the Tones section of the iPhone from inside iTunes

    Screen Shot 2013-12-24 at 9.36.54 AM.png

    2. Delete the grayed out songs from this section.

    Screen Shot 2013-12-24 at 9.37.41 AM.jpg

    3. Go to the Tones section of iTunes and drag the Tones back into the iPhone.

     

    Screen Shot 2013-12-24 at 9.38.31 AM.png

     

     

    After I dragged the ringetone back into the phone, it was showing up in my Sound Settings again, with no damage done to my iTunes Match set up.

     

    Happy troubleshooting!

  • by Ginga121,

    Ginga121 Ginga121 Jan 28, 2014 6:35 AM in response to Jerrill
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jan 28, 2014 6:35 AM in response to Jerrill

    Jerrills method worked for me.

     

    I had to sync my phone 5 or 6 times after deleting the files. The first few syncs were very fast and didn't appear to do anything, but then it kicked in and everything works fine now!

     

    Before iTunes was ignoring loads of my music and was giving me 11 errors. Afterwards only 2 of the 11 errors still came up and all the other music synced perfectly.

     

    Cheers Jerrill!

  • by macrox1956,

    macrox1956 macrox1956 Mar 30, 2014 3:44 PM in response to Morac
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 30, 2014 3:44 PM in response to Morac

    No no no.  All this is just guessing.  This is the way to do it:

     

    Open iTunes

    go to Music

    Choose song

    right click and choose info

    set time of play you want e.g., start 0 sec and stop 20 sec and make sure you click boxes.

    close choose info box.

    Right click on song and choose create aac file.

    It will be created in same folder

    right click on new acc file. Open it in windows explorer. it will have .m4a extension, rename file to have extension .m4r

    save it despite warning and LEAVE THE WINDOWS EXPLORER folder open

    back in iTunes choose Tones

    Drag the new *.m4r file to tones

    NOW HERE IS THE CRUCIAL PART....

    Drag the file to the right side of iTUNES screen, You should already have your iPhone connected. You will

    see the devices tab open up and just drop the file in the iPhone.  VOILA!   It has worked 100% of the time without fail for over 30 ringtones. 

     

    Ciao

  • by TTD03,

    TTD03 TTD03 Mar 30, 2014 3:36 PM in response to macrox1956
    Level 1 (80 points)
    Mar 30, 2014 3:36 PM in response to macrox1956

    Would also like to add that the clip has to be less than 30 seconds, or else you get an error message.

  • by macrox1956,

    macrox1956 macrox1956 Mar 30, 2014 3:51 PM in response to TTD03
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 30, 2014 3:51 PM in response to TTD03

    Yes. Thank you for adding that note.  I really think this is a sure path. I just added another 10 ringtones this way

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